Enjoy an educational stroll along Olympia’s McLane Creek Nature Trail, guided by plant experts from the Native Plant Salvage Foundation. All ages and levels of experience are welcome, so come learn the names and ecological & ethnobotanical roles of our beautiful northwest native plants! These Native Plant Walks are a great way to learn plants, botanize with friends, and enjoy an evening outdoors. Plant walks are held 1st & 3rd Thursdays of every month, from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. at the McLane Creek Nature Trail. Sliding-scale donation of $5 - $20 is suggested.

This class teaches audiences the importance of speaking up when talking to doctors about their healthcare. It also explains what health advocates are, and how they can help people get answers to their questions about healthcare concerns. The Tumwater Timberland Library is located at 7023 New Market St SW, accessible via Intercity Transit route 12/13. Call 360-943-7790 for more information.

Astronomer Russ Genet and philosopher Cheryl Genet will visit The Evergreen State College on Wednesday, May 17 to lead a program titled “Science, Wisdom, and the Future: Humanity’s Quest for a Flourishing Earth.” The event will be held in Evergreen’s Purce Hall and will begin at 7 p.m.

Russ and Cheryl Genet will raise awareness of the noetic sciences, a multidisciplinary field that combines scientific tools and techniques with subjective ways of knowing to examine human experience. They will also explore methods for empowering citizen scientists and diverse communities, and suggest ways that humanity can begin to shift toward a sustainable future.

Dr. Russ Genet is a research scholar in residence at California Polytechnic State University, a professor of astronomy at Cuesta College and is the former director of the Fairborn Observatory. He pioneered the world’s first digital telescopes and first fully robotic observatory and was featured in the PBS special The Perfect Stargazer. His lecture, titled “Cultural evolutionary forces, citizen science, and a flourishing planet” will explore the role of science as a powerful tool for understanding both natural and cultural evolutionary process.

Join us for a very special presentation this Friday, May 19th, 6 PM at Orca Books in downtown Olympia. Evergreen's Dr. Sarah Eltantawi will be talking about her new book, Shari'ah on Trial: Northern Nigeria's Islamic Revolution. We are very excited for this event and hope all can join us!

There are two new short videos on Olympia history available this month from the Now Where Were We? series by Deb Ross.

Three Little Maids, courtesy Washington State Historical Society

Olympia has a long and distinguished history of top-notch entertainment venues. At the iconic intersection of 4th Avenue and Washington Street we visit one of them, the State Theater, home of Harlequin Productions, and learn from Artistic Director Linda Whitney what it takes to preserve a historic building and create theater. https://youtu.be/Dcbyl-scy-M

This video is about the history of wood products in Olympia Washington. We interview Bill Jacobs, longtime resident of Olympia, about his memories of the Port and learn about the importance of the industry to the development of Olympia and Washington State. Includes footage of a marriage on a smoke stack. https://youtu.be/Gf-APCj_Nf0

You can subscribe on the YouTube Channel page for updates and new videos. The show is in its second year.

Jordan Abel is a Nisga’a writer from BC. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at Simon Fraser University where his research concentrates on the intersection between Digital Humanities and Indigenous Literary Studies. Abel’s creative work has recently been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry (Tightrope), The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation (Arbiter Ring), and The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (Hayword). Abel is the author of Injun, Un/inhabited, and The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award).

The 2nd annual Indigenous Climate Justice Symposium will be held on Thursday and Friday May 4-5 in the Evergreen State College Longhouse on Olympia. Evergreen's Climate Change and Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Project is co-hosting the Symposium with the Nisqually Tribe. Among the speakers are Faith Spotted Eagle and Rueben George, key leaders of Native-led alliances to stop oil pipelines, and Lummi youth who visited Paris during the 2015 UN climate summit.https://www.facebook.com/events/1484085561611245/

The talk will focus on some of the new research findings on some of the large whale species especially humpback and gray whales that have become increasingly common in our waters. The talk will include original research including findings from new tags attached to whales that have revealed their underwater behavior, feeding, and response to Navy sonar and ships. These include new video tags that show their behavior from the whale’s perspective.

John Calambokidis is a founder and senior Research Biologist at Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington. A graduate of Evergreen State College, he has been studying marine mammals and especially blue, humpback, and gray whales for more than 30 years. He has authored two books on marine mammals ( the award-winning Guide to Marine Mammals of Greater Puget Sound from Island Publishers, with R. Osborne and E.M. Dorsey and Blue Whales from Voyageur Press, with G.H. Steiger) as well as more than 200 publications in scientific journals and technical reports. His work has been covered on shows by Discovery Channel, National Geographic, BBC, and others.

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